Tear Gas, Molotov Cocktails in Central Paris in Clashes Between Police & Protesters (and vid)
"Clashes have erupted in central Paris between police and demonstrators during May Day protests in the French capital. Demonstrators from French unions also took to the streets to protest the results of the first round of the French presidential elections..."
Sorry to disappoint you NDPP but......
PredictIt
Macron - 83 cents
Le Pen - 17 cents
You never disappoint me NR...
Contrary to the continuing nonsense out there in the mainstream press Macron maintains his 59%-41% lead over Le Pen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_French_presidentia...
Demonstrators from French unions also took to the streets to protest the results of the first round of the French presidential elections..."
Are they protesting the fact that elections were held, or protesting the fact that the elections didn't go the way they wanted?
Demonstrators from French unions also took to the streets to protest the results of the first round of the French presidential elections..."Are they protesting the fact that elections were held, or protesting the fact that the elections didn't go the way they wanted?
I think the word results is sort of a tip.
Not to go all Asperger's here, but aren't the results basically math? Or do you mean the (presumed) eventual outcomes?
I read "the results" as "who won and who didn't".
They were demonstrating against the idea of a neocon running against a fascist. For some reason that leaves them feeling disenfranchised and believing that the new Pres will be far less than union friendly.
Le Pen is not closing the gap!
BVA Pollster
Candidate / Apr 28 / May 2 / Difference
Macron / 59% / 60% / Up 1%
Le Pen / 41% / 40% / Down 1%
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_French_presidentia...
Predict It Bookie
Macron - 85 cents
Le Pen - 19 cents
https://www.predictit.org/Market/2449/Who-will-be-elected-president-of-F...
They were demonstrating against the idea of a neocon running against a fascist. For some reason that leaves them feeling disenfranchised and believing that the new Pres will be far less than union friendly.
More like a neoliberal.
They were demonstrating against the idea of a neocon running against a fascist. For some reason that leaves them feeling disenfranchised and believing that the new Pres will be far less than union friendly.
More like a neoliberal.
Those are interchangeble words in my world.
This is just by-the-by, but if Liberal and Conservative are typically regarded as opposites, how can "neo-Liberal" and "Neo-conservative" be synonyms?
To be fair, maybe it's like the way that "flammable" and "inflammable" mean the same thing, but I'm still kind of curious.
And I guess I'm also still curious what the protest was about. If they were protesting (let's say) some local business buying sweatshop clothes, we'd all understand that the protest is an attempt to convince that local business to stop buying sweatshop clothes.
But in this case, who is supposed to do/stop doing something, and what's the thing they're supposed to do/stop doing?
Or are protests just a public grump, now? In other words, "we're not demanding anything, we just want everyone to know we're disappointed!"?
Here is what on-line says about the terms. IMO they are extemely subtle difference that in real politicians are largely irrelevant.
neoconservative
adjective
1. relating to or denoting a return to a modified form of a traditional viewpoint, in particular a political ideology characterized by an emphasis on free-market capitalism and an interventionist foreign policy.
noun
1.
a person with neoconservative views.
Neoliberalism is a small-state economic ideology based on promoting "rational self-interest" through policies such as privatisation, deregulation, globalisation and tax cuts.
As for liberals and conservatives being different all I have to say is that great Canadian adage; Liberal - Tory same old story.
Neoconservative also has a different, somewhat more specific meaning, relating to people (some of them Americans of Jewish origin) who were once very left wing, or at least left-liberal, moving far to the right due to support for the most hardcore Zionism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism
Macron is certainly not a Neoconservative in this sense, though I'm sure he will continue the same pro-Israel policy as other French and European governments have maintained. Neoconservatives are considered to have strongly influenced the wars on Iraq and on the Middle East in general.
He is definitely a Neoliberal - remember that this term does not refer to the common US meaning of "liberal" as someone vaguely on the left but to liberal (free market) economic theory. Macron refuses to modify his policies of "liberalizing" the economy - meaning putting the axe in many workers' rights, representation and to social protection. France has a very important public housing sector, for example. Given the high cost of housing in its major cities, access to social housing is extremely important to households. I have a friend who is a middle-school teacher who has finally secured access to a social-housing flat in Paris. Even for educated professional workers, such forms of social protection are vital. Their sell-off under Thatcher (which Blair never repealed) makes life very difficult indeed for public-sector workers in London and other major cities in the UK.
Many, even on the left, have criticized Mélenchon's refusal to give an explicit public endorsement of Macron, though the former does repeatedly say "not one vote for the FN". But Macron is also acting as an arrogant prick, by refusing to even listen to the people his policies would harm.
Melenchon is correct in not endorsing him.
Macron is maintaining his 20% margin (60% vs 40%) over Le Pen in French polling today as time is running out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_French_presidentia...
Melenchon is correct in not endorsing him.
I agree, especially if he intends to run a slate of candidtaes under the FI banner.
3 most recent polls 60% vs 40% for Macron
This is a shoe-in. Like the U.S. elections in 2016. Nothing could disrupt this!
If I were Macron, I think I'd spend the last few days blanketing the country with this image:
And the message (en Francais, naturellement) "Yes, it CAN happen, so don't sulk, vote!"
Well, the overall numbers are a little more lopsided than they were in the US election. 60 to 40 is a bit better than 48 - 46. Macron, it seems to me, is way beyond any margin-of-error snafus, or last-minute rallying of right-wingers scared by the polls.
But like I said before, Le Pen's numbers, assuming they hold up on election day, are WAY more impressive than what her dad got in 2002, and only 6 points away from how Trump did last year. So yeah, if anyone thought that French voters were inoculated against right-wing, racist populism, the upcoming vote might be a splash of cold water.
Macron appears to be increasing his lead now 61% vs 39% or a 22% lead over Le Pen in latest poll
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_French_presidentia...
who will protect us from savage globalization
Yanis Varoufakis thinks the French left should vote for Macron. He includes an interesting anecdote:
Perhaps because Macron did not emerge from the test tube of social-democratic party politics, he was the only minister of the Franco-German axis to risk his own political capital by coming to Greece’s aid in 2015. As I recount in my new book (and a recent commentary in Le Monde), Macron understood that what the eurozone finance ministers and the troika were doing to our government and, more importantly, to our people was detrimental to the interests of France and the European Union.In a text message, with which he announced his willingness to intervene and try to end our asphyxiation, he told me that he struggled to convince Hollande and Gabriel to find a solution. His message ended thus: “I do not want my generation to be the one responsible for Greece exiting Europe.”
Thanks Michael and of course they should.
Nope.
Macron's presidential campaign alleges 'massive' hacking
To whoever's behind this -- assuming it did, indeed, happen -- THANK YOU, on behalf of the world, for trying to get Marine LePen elected!
Also, I hereby summon Radiorahim to take world leaders to school on how e-mails can be encrypted.
It was never up for debate. It is going to be huge blowout for Macron. Now if we could only get the UK turned around.
Le Pen Is Just A Gargantuan Polling Error Behind Macron
Donald Trump was just a normal polling error behind Hillary Clinton on the eve of the 2016 presidential election. The far-right National Front candidate in France, Marine Le Pen, by contrast, is an enormous, historic polling error behind the centrist En Marche! candidate Emmanuel Macron.
Macron won the first round of the French presidential election in April, 24 percent to 21 percent, and as expected, he has consolidated most of the support that went to candidates who did not make the runoff. Now, he heads into the runoff on Sunday with a huge lead over Le Pen. In an average of surveys conducted over the last two weeks, Macron has earned 61 percent to Le Pen’s 39 percent.
To win, Le Pen needs the polls to be way off. That’s possible. Clinton, for example, led Bernie Sanders in polls of the Michigan Democratic primary by 21 percentage points before Sanders’s shocking win there. But that upset was one of the biggest in U.S. presidential primary history. Polling misses of that magnitude don’t happen very often.
French presidential election polls in the runoff round have been fairly accurate over the past 50 years. In elections since 1969,1 an average of polls over the final two weeks of the runoff campaign (i.e., polls taken after the first round) has never been off by more than 8.4 percentage points.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/le-pen-is-just-a-gargantuan-polling...
Looks like Macron has this.
https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/860468143411441664
https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/860469052782690304
https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/860469591658479617
After all the trouble with the hacking of the DNC one would have hoped security measures were taken to avoid a repeat.
Macron now leads Le Pen 63% vs 37% or by 26% I hope the actual results show an even wider margin.
Rebel Spirit: Majority of EU Youth Ready to Join Mass Uprising
"A new poll suggests the majority of young Europeans are ready to join a full-scale revolt against the EU's ruling elites."
Rebel Spirit: Majority of EU Youth Ready to Join Mass Uprising
"A new poll suggests the majority of young Europeans are ready to join a full-scale revolt against the EU's ruling elites."
I been watching talking heads telling the public that with lose of Le Pen, the upcoming victory of Merkel, and finally the lose of populism in Italy will stop populism. If Marcon wins be ready for general pile on by the media saying populism has crested and now it will slowly go away. I laugh at the naive position, the base of the populist movement is the general economic malasie affecting developed nations. If you can not employ your youth in a meanful way then let me tell you that populism will keep raising. This talk of populism in retreat is silly.
The problem is that Marcon has a movement but very little infunsrtuture in the political realm. I would not discount the possiblty of Marcon could benefit from sitting politicans defecting to his party. But his party was founded in 2016 which means he has no really strenght in parliament, regional groups, of cites controlled by his party. He has to be very skilled and trusted by the public to effectively rule with partliament made of rival parties. Can he solve the econmic problems that french population is facing in his political term. I doubt it. History will decide. But he has to beat Le Pen for now.
French cybersecurity agency to investigate ‘massive and co-ordinated’ hack on front-runner Macron
Excellent. Let's find out who's rooting for Le Pen.
Rebel Spirit: Majority of EU Youth Ready to Join Mass Uprising
"A new poll suggests the majority of young Europeans are ready to join a full-scale revolt against the EU's ruling elites."
I been watching talking heads telling the public that with lose of Le Pen, the upcoming victory of Merkel, and finally the lose of populism in Italy will stop populism. If Marcon wins be ready for general pile on by the media saying populism has crested and now it will slowly go away. I laugh at the naive position, the base of the populist movement is the general economic malasie affecting developed nations. If you can not employ your youth in a meanful way then let me tell you that populism will keep raising. This talk of populism in retreat is silly.
The problem is that Marcon has a movement but very little infunsrtuture in the political realm. I would not discount the possiblty of Marcon could benefit from sitting politicans defecting to his party. But his party was founded in 2016 which means he has no really strenght in parliament, regional groups, of cites controlled by his party. He has to be very skilled and trusted by the public to effectively rule with partliament made of rival parties. Can he solve the econmic problems that french population is facing in his political term. I doubt it. History will decide. But he has to beat Le Pen for now.
I think you will be very surprised about the infrastructure as Macron has massive, massive political and business connections with many of the most powerful people not only in France but also on a global scale. He is the chosen successor of the current president (who did not run) and appears to have been groomed for this role since, at latest, his days as a banker for Rothschild & Cie Banque. Considering the incestuous relationship between global banking and governments, it's entirely possible he got that position in part due to his experience working for the government prior to that. Beyond that he has the support of virtually the entire EU and many leaders or former world leaders such as Angela Merkel and Barack Obama. He also appears to have the support of the global social media giants Twitter and Facebook, among others, although such things are hard to prove.
This all said, I'll go on record as saying that despite the severity of recent accusations against Macron including both tax evasion and drug usage, I predict he gets a convincing (55%+) victory. Some of the nationalists who supported Trump believe Le Pen will win despite the polls due to unusually high undecided numbers but I believe they are mistaken due to partisan bias and a making a conclusion based on a false parallel between this race and the American one despite wildly different national identities and demographics. If I was a betting man, I would bet on Macron up to 85c a share.
French cybersecurity agency to investigate ‘massive and co-ordinated’ hack on front-runner Macron
Excellent. Let's find out who's rooting for Le Pen.
Putin, Wikileaks, 4chan. David Duke, probably. You know, the usual suspects.
Rebel Spirit: Majority of EU Youth Ready to Join Mass Uprising
"A new poll suggests the majority of young Europeans are ready to join a full-scale revolt against the EU's ruling elites."
I been watching talking heads telling the public that with lose of Le Pen, the upcoming victory of Merkel, and finally the lose of populism in Italy will stop populism. If Marcon wins be ready for general pile on by the media saying populism has crested and now it will slowly go away. I laugh at the naive position, the base of the populist movement is the general economic malasie affecting developed nations. If you can not employ your youth in a meanful way then let me tell you that populism will keep raising. This talk of populism in retreat is silly.
The problem is that Marcon has a movement but very little infunsrtuture in the political realm. I would not discount the possiblty of Marcon could benefit from sitting politicans defecting to his party. But his party was founded in 2016 which means he has no really strenght in parliament, regional groups, of cites controlled by his party. He has to be very skilled and trusted by the public to effectively rule with partliament made of rival parties. Can he solve the econmic problems that french population is facing in his political term. I doubt it. History will decide. But he has to beat Le Pen for now.
I think you will be very surprised about the infrastructure as Macron has massive, massive political and business connections with many of the most powerful people not only in France but also on a global scale. He is the chosen successor of the current president (who did not run) and appears to have been groomed for this role since, at latest, his days as a banker for Rothschild & Cie Banque. Considering the incestuous relationship between global banking and governments, it's entirely possible he got that position in part due to his experience working for the government prior to that. Beyond that he has the support of virtually the entire EU and many leaders or former world leaders such as Angela Merkel and Barack Obama. He also appears to have the support of the global social media giants Twitter and Facebook, among others, although such things are hard to prove.
This all said, I'll go on record as saying that despite the severity of recent accusations against Macron including both tax evasion and drug usage, I predict he gets a convincing (55%+) victory. Some of the nationalists who supported Trump believe Le Pen will win despite the polls due to unusually high undecided numbers but I believe they are mistaken due to partisan bias and a making a conclusion based on a false parallel between this race and the American one despite wildly different national identities and demographics. If I was a betting man, I would bet on Macron up to 85c a share.
I am more than happy to take your word for his influnce. But I am skeptical about effectiveness of Macron or Le Pen, without any offical allengiance with any party in the National Assembly or Senate. All these parties have there own agendas and I have doubts that will lay down and not demand there pound of flesh for passing laws. As powerful as the executive is I think that he will find that is going to have parnter up with certain parties. Once that happens he will by default gain enemies from the parties he left out. We will see.
Cody
This all said, I'll go on record as saying that despite the severity of recent accusations against Macron including both tax evasion and drug usage, I predict he gets a convincing (55%+) victory
I agree with you about the outcome. But the more I thought about nature and timing of the accusations I came to the conclusion that indivdiuals that released that information not help Le Pen win(again I agree with you this will not be enough), but rather those individuals were looking to a future where Macron is the winner. Releasing this info during the blackout period really bunts if effective on the outcome. So I reject the idea that this dump of info is movitaded by electing Le Pen. Rather it is an attempt to rob Macron of legitmeancy as the victor and sabotage his agenda after the election. It designed to wound Macron policaticaly and sabotage his political agenda after the election.
The Return of Propaganda in Europe: 'Not That!' - by Thierry Meyssan
http://www.voltairenet.org/article196260.html
"The current French Presidential campaign is unlike any other European electoral campaign since the Second World War - for the first time, a team experienced in war propaganda is working in the shadows for one candidate. The French electorate is now preparing to vote en masse in the second round for a person against whom they demonstrated just as massively two years ago, Emmanuel Macron.
The cruder it is, the better it works."
#MacronLeaks archives are now available...
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/860694120800694274
"Wikileaks is still assessing content."
Cody
This all said, I'll go on record as saying that despite the severity of recent accusations against Macron including both tax evasion and drug usage, I predict he gets a convincing (55%+) victory
I agree with you about the outcome. But the more I thought about nature and timing of the accusations I came to the conclusion that indivdiuals that released that information not help Le Pen win(again I agree with you this will not be enough), but rather those individuals were looking to a future where Macron is the winner. Releasing this info during the blackout period really bunts if effective on the outcome. So I reject the idea that this dump of info is movitaded by electing Le Pen. Rather it is an attempt to rob Macron of legitmeancy as the victor and sabotage his agenda after the election. It designed to wound Macron policaticaly and sabotage his political agenda after the election.
Agreed and I have seen this suggested elsewhere as well.
From the Voltaire link...
And yet, when you ask these electors what specific danger this candidate represents, they can find nothing pertinent for which to blame her, and shelter behind their criticisms of her father.
Her father, of course, being the man who founded the political party that she was the head of until a week or so ago, and whose ideology continues to be the guiding force.
The Return of Propaganda in Europe: 'Not That!' - by Thierry Meyssan
"That" of course being fascism, bigotry. So, "not that".
Le Pen crushed
35 to 65 exit/projection poll
How first round voters voted. Or didn't:
https://mobile.twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/861282950163439616/photo/1
Mélenchon talking head on bbc, or at least a candiate for Melenchon in National Assembly. Says will not work with Macron, will mobolize agaisnt reforms that include primarly with economy/labour. BBC coverage says that Fillon told his members in National Assembly not cooperate with Macron at this time. They are going to wait to see what happens in upcoming elections the National Assembly. Socialist Hollande pleasent congrats and nothing about cooperation, but sounded positive
-- 1/3 anstained or voted blank.
Pollster On BBC,
36% support Macron's platform
Direct linked between unemployment and Le Pen support- Total 10 reginal political divesions with highest unemployed went Le Pen.
Pollster on BBC has poll about upcoming National Assembly possible results. I think she said that will mention at the end of BBC program.
How first round voters voted. Or didn't:
I'm most fascinated by the 11% of first round Mélenchon voters who chose Le Pen in round two. Trying to elect the Alt-Right seems like a pretty severe and ill-chosen way to tell the world you're disappointed.
Centrist Macron Beats Right-Winger Le Pen in French Presidential Elections (and vid)
BBC I did not get the whole thing but was implied the Rupublican party is badly split with 3 main factions. Actually talking heads were mentioning that Macron will try to put the pressure on the fissures in the party. And according to the talking heads the chance of repubicans splitting into factions quite real especially if macron plays his cards right. All so I think I heard that some memebers republican party openingly in revolt agaisnts fillion who said not make any deals with Macron until the elections in the National Assembey. But let stress I have yet to find any confrimation in the press for this.
How first round voters voted. Or didn't:I'm most fascinated by the 11% of first round Mélenchon voters who chose Le Pen in round two. Trying to elect the Alt-Right seems like a pretty severe and ill-chosen way to tell the world you're disappointed.
I'm surprised isn't wasn't more since both candidates are anti-EU and both oppose the neo-liberal economic agenda.
